Right to Know: CIA and CYA

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Once-secret documents are becoming secret again, under a chilling program of removing material from the National Archives, whose officials aren't allowed to tell exactly by whom or why.

Historians noticed that documents they'd read and even copied had become secret again. It's clear that national intelligence agencies -- although it's a secret just which ones -- are removing and reclassifying the material. But why?

What threat could be posed by documents that are decades old -- some nearly six decades old -- and already have been public for years? Could fanatical terrorists suddenly benefit from a 1948 memo on a CIA scheme to float propaganda-dropping balloons over Iron Curtain countries?

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Perhaps national security is not the only motive. Among the papers spirited away was a 1950 CIA assessment that China's involvement in the Korean War was "not probable." Two weeks later, China sent 300,000 troops to Korea.

Is the CIA involved in CYA, cover your arsenal?

There may be nothing more sinister here than bureaucratic overkill, self-justification and anal-retentive silliness. Nonetheless, this reclassification project must be viewed in the larger context of the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy.

Declassifying material after 25 years should remain the default policy, and once made public, documents should remain so. This is a cornerstone of self-governance.